Program Background
Cypress Hills Program Features
Program Model: 50/50
Languages: Spanish and English
Language of Initial Literacy Instruction: All students are taught in the partner language and English simultaneously
Student Background Within the Dual Language Program
Linguistic Profile: Of 246 students enrolled in 2004, roughly one third spoke predominantly English at home, one third spoke predominantly Spanish, and one third spoke both languages.
Ethnic Profile: Most students (71%) are Latino, with families from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, and other Latin American and Caribbean countries. African American students, many with family ties to the English-speaking Caribbean, account for 27% of the student body. Asian and White students make up the remaining 2%.
Percent of students in the program qualifying for free/reduced price lunch: 85.4%
Unit Plan
Standards to Be Addressed
Standard 1: Creating, Performing and Participating in the Arts
- Students will know and demonstrate a range of movement elements and skills (including such locomotor movements as walking, running, hopping, turning, etc.).
- Students will demonstrate a range of forms from free improvisation to structured choreography.
- Students will create and improvise dance phrases, studies, and dances, alone and/or in collaboration with others
Standard 2: Knowing and Using Arts Materials and Resources
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of how to access and use dance resources (such as choreography charts and maps).
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of audience/performer responsibilities and relationships in dance.
Standard 3: Responding to and Analyzing Works of Art
- Students will demonstrate a knowledge of the technical language used in discussing dance performances.
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of choreographic principles and processes.
- Students will express to others their understanding of specific dance performances, including perceptions, analyses, interpretations, and evaluations.
Standard 4: Understanding the Cultural Dimensions of the Arts
- Students will develop an understanding of the personal and cultural forces that shape artistic communication and how the arts in turn shape the diverse cultures of past and present society.
New York State Learning Standards for Social Studies
- Standard 3: Geography: Students will draw maps and diagrams that serve as representations of places, physical features, and objects
ACTFL Standards for Foreign Language Instruction
- Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.
- Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.
- Standard 3.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
Guiding Questions
- What are some of the ways that we can remember the dances we make up?
- What are some of the ways that professional dancers and choreographers remember the dances they make up?
- What are some of the movement elements that we can use to make up a dance?
- What can we learn by looking at a dance map?
- What are some of the advantages or disadvantages of using notation systems versus video to record and remember dances?
Big Ideas
- Dances are made up of smaller elements that we can describe in everyday terms.
- Videotaping and notating using symbols (both invented and standard) are ways to record dances; each has its own benefits and limitations.
- Symbols are arbitrary; therefore, it is necessary to provide their meaning in order to make them comprehensible to users (such as through a key).
- Symbols and notation are useful for communicating specific movements, but we may need other forms of description and examples to teach all the details and the expressive feeling of a dance.
- We can apply many of the principles used in making a dance map to making other types of maps; for example, both a dance map and a geographical map use keys and define the map’s orientation.
- Maps are most effective when designed to fit the needs of the user.
Background/Prior Knowledge to be Activated in the Unit
- Basic map-making.
- The difference between locomotor and non-locomotor movement.
- Using child-generated symbols in a sequence to map standard forms of non-locomotor movement.
- Identifying and using everyday movements to make up simple dances.
Objectives
Content Area Skills and Concepts
- Understanding the difference between locomotor and non-locomotor movement
- Clearly demonstrating where a movement begins and ends in space
- Clearly demonstrating changes of direction in space
- Clearly demonstrating a sequence of movement patterns in space
- Using consistent symbols and a key within a map to create a comprehensible "story"
- Reading a map in order to decipher and perform a dance
- Observing and describing everyday movements in everyday activities.
- Clearly distinguishing between different types of everyday movement in a dance (e.g. running vs. walking vs. turning vs. hopping)
- Deciphering and using Language of Dance (LOD) symbols.
- Using a video camera to record dance work in class.
- Comparing and contrasting dance notation and documentation systems.
Language Skills
- Ordinal numbers: primero, segundo, tercero, etc.
- Phrases: Hay que phrase followed by an infinitive (e.g., Hay que caminar), Este símbolo significa que... (e.g., Este símbolo significa que hay que brincar)
- Prepositions that relate to spacial use: hacia, desde, hasta, al lado de, a la izquierda de, a la derecha de, etc.
- Vocabulary: correr, caminar, dar vueltas, menear, brincar, clave, mapa, al comienzo, al final, empieza, termina, aquí, allá, una linea continua, una linea interrumpida, curvas, flechas, puntos, cruces
Teaching/Learning Activities
- Identify everyday movements that are both locomotor and non-locomotor
- Create simple dance sequences using everyday movement
- Create symbols to represent locomotor movement
- Apply self-created symbols to notate a dance
- Decode these symbols to perform or recreate a dance
- Create, exchange, and decode student-produced dance maps using these symbols in order to teach each other simple dances
- Read LabaNotation LOD symbols to decode movement
- Use LOD symbols to notate a simple dance sequence
- Create, view, and compare video as a means of documenting dance
- Reproduce a dance from a videotape
- Compare and contrast experiences of reproducing dance from videotape versus maps or LOD
Materials/Resources
- Stage, gym, or large open space within a classroom
- Butcher paper, markers, and masking tape
- An easel if no wall space is available for hanging experience chart
- Sidewalk chalk and/or tape
- A Spanish translation of Robert Graves’ “Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted To Dance.”
- Blank paper and pens, pencils, crayons, markers, or other writing implements
- Sentence strips
- A video camera and videotape
- A VCR and television
- Any necessary cables or transfer devices for viewing videotapes on a VCR and a television monitor
- A sample rehearsal video of a choreography in progress
- A sample professional video of a finished choreographic work, such as those produced by Paul Taylor, the American Ballet Theater, and Hubbard Street Dance, for comparison with the rehearsal video
- A sample dance map of the choreography in progress in the rehearsal video
- Copies of rubrics for assessments
- Copies of checklist for student homework assignment
Assessment
- Informal assessment through observation, noting whether students are understanding the concepts as well as whether they are correctly using new vocabulary words.
- Presentations/performances by children, which are assessed via a rubric
- Examination of children's maps, which are assessed via a rubric
- Notation quiz in which children must apply symbols to describe a sample dance sequence performed by the teacher.
Lesson Plan
Standards to Be Addressed
New York State Learning Standards for the Arts
Standard 1: Creating, Performing and Participating in the Arts
- Students will know and demonstrate a range of movement elements and skills (including such locomotor movements as walking, running, hopping, turning, etc.).
Standard 2: Knowing and Using Arts Materials and Resources
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of how to access and use dance resources (such as choreography charts and maps).
New York State Learning Standards for Social Studies
- Standard 3: Geography: Students will draw maps and diagrams that serve as representations of places, physical features, and objects
ACTFL Standards for Foreign Language Instruction
- Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.
- Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.
- Standard 3.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
Guiding Questions
- What are some of the ways that we can remember the dances we make up?
- How could we use maps to remember the elements of a dance and how a dance uses space?
Motivation
Whole Group Activity
The teacher asks students to talk about what a map is and to share what they know about maps, eliciting information that they have learned in their social studies classes, such as the use of symbolic notation, the use of keys to convey the meanings of these symbols, directionality, etc.). The teacher then introduces the idea of a dance map through the read-aloud.
Assessment
Assessment is through informal observation and through the use of a rubric designed to measure the following abilities:
- Ability to understand the correspondence between a specific movement and its symbol
- Ability to communicate a sequence of movement patterns in space using symbolic notation
- Ability to interpret symbolic notation on a dance map and perform the corresponding dance correctly
- Achievement of the language objectives in correct use of key vocabulary and the hay que constructions
Extension
For homework: With his or her permission, follow a family member at home for five minutes and use symbolic notation to record the movements on a map. In many cases, it will be necessary to create new symbols to express these movements. Be sure to include a key that provides the meanings of your new symbols. As an example, you could map how someone in your family moves around when they are cleaning up or making a meal. After you have done mapping, use your map to answer the following questions:
- What kinds of locomotor movements were used? What symbolic notations did you create to express these movements and why?
- Was there a lot of movement in those five minutes or not very much?
- Was the movement repetitive or varied?
- Did all of the locomotor movement stay in one small area or did it move to different parts of your home?
- Extra Credit Question: Did the movement pattern imply anything about how the person felt in those five minutes?
Objectives
Content Area Skills and Concepts
- Demonstrating where a movement begins and ends in space
- Demonstrating changes of direction in space
- Demonstrating a sequence of movement patterns in space
- Using consistent symbols and a key within a map to create a comprehensible "story"
- Reading a map in order to decipher and perform a dance
Language Skills
- Ordinal numbers: primero, segundo, tercero, etc.
- Phrases: Hay que phrase followed by an infinitive (e.g., Hay que caminar), Este símbolo significa que... (e.g., Este símbolo significa que hay que brincar)
- Prepositions that relate to spacial use: hacia, desde, hasta, al lado de, a la izquierda de, a la derecha de, etc.
- Vocabulary: correr, caminar, dar vueltas, menear, brincar, clave, mapa, al comienzo, al final, empieza, termina, aquí, allá
Thinking/Study Skills
- Making and recording observations
- Creating two-dimensional representations of temporal, three-dimensional events
- Using symbolic representations to convey information
Materials/Resources
- Stage, gym, or large open space within a classroom
- Butcher paper, markers, and masking tape for filling in and hanging class experience chart
- An easel if no wall space is available for hanging experience chart
- Sidewalk chalk and/or tape for marking floor patterns on rug or floor
- A Spanish translation of Robert Graves’ “Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted To Dance.”
- Blank sentence strips
- Large scale map of a dance
- Copies of checklist for student homework assignment
Teaching/Learning Activities
Whole Group Activity
Read “Frank the Monster...” and show students the dance map on the inside cover of the book. Ask, “Could we create our own dance map? What would we need to know about the symbols on the map to use it?”
Using sentence strips to record the actions and their corresponding symbolic notations, create a key with the students for the following types of movement: caminar (walk), correr (run), dar vueltas (turn), menear (wiggly pathway), and brincar (hop).
Using chalk (on a rug) or masking tape (on a floor), create a large-scale dance map using the symbols you have just agreed upon. Invite children to follow the map by dancing through it.
As a class, transfer the floor map to chart paper.
Small Group Activity
Divide the children into groups of four (with varying levels of language proficiency in each group) and give each group a piece of chart paper and a marker. Ask each group to create a dance map that incorporates three movements and uses the agreed-upon symbolic notations for those movements.
Whole Group Activity
When the groups have completed their maps, have each of the members in each group present their map to the class. One group member (the reporter) will explain the map using key vocabulary and the hay que constructions while the other members perform the dance.
Review key vocabulary and symbols for use in homework.
Teaching the Lesson
The Cypress Hills Community School supports dance instruction in all grades of the dual language program, not only to encourage cultural literacy in the arts, but also because dance offers the opportunity to experience vocabulary through Total Physical Response ( TPR). This unit, like many of the other units I have prepared for the school’s dual language program, was designed to support second language comprehension and production in Spanish, while simultaneously teaching higher level concepts in dance notation and analysis. This unit scaffolds learning across content areas. It is tied specifically to the third grade social studies curriculum.
During the part of the lesson in which the children and the teacher together create the symbols and the key for their dance maps, each action verb is heard, spoken, performed, and represented graphically. Students might first hear, “¿Cómo podemos mostrar en nuestros mapas que hay que caminar?” (How can we show in our maps that it is necessary to walk?). Then, they see a child or the teacher create a symbol (for example, --------->) that conveys the sense of the word, accompanied by the written word in Spanish. The symbol is then copied not only onto a large map of the classroom, but also onto the floor of the classroom, where children can experience that symbol directly by walking on it. Children then transfer that knowledge back to maps and apply it to their own choreography. The sequence of activities moves back and forth between the physical experience of dancing, and hearing and using the words and symbols representing an action.
Because this lesson is multimodal, it allows for a broad range of student abilities to be addressed. For emergent speakers or students still in the silent phase of second language acquisition, TPR makes the concepts comprehensible. Students are also supported through the read-aloud of an illustrated book. More advanced Spanish speakers are engaging with content-area concepts relating to dance, social studies (mapping), and math (sequencing and symbols). In addition, open-ended questions are posed throughout the lesson to encourage the development of expressive verbal skills for more advanced learners or native speakers of Spanish.
This unit scaffolds learning by connecting to what students already know and what they are learning in the content areas. This is particularly important to do when working with second language learners. For this reason, instruction can never be delivered in isolation. Rather, it is supported by third-grade thematic units and by a continuous dance program beginning in kindergarten that prepares children for the spatial and language elements presented here. Over the prior three years, students have built up vocabulary about basic body parts, emotions, and movement elements. They have learned to link words in Spanish with their corresponding actions through a series of games and songs that are repeated during the early childhood grades. They have learned the concept of sequencing, and by the end of the second grade, they have created visual representations for non-locomotor dance sequences.
Meanwhile, the mapping concepts in this lesson support and are supported by an in-depth study of mapping in Grades 2-5. In second grade, simple maps are introduced. In third grade, students’ social studies curriculum involves extensive map-making of local environments such as the classroom, home, and school. In fourth grade, students begin to study political maps; and in fifth grade, they do in-depth project work with topographical maps. The dance maps reinforce the idea that a map represents a physical space and (in some cases) the uses of a physical space. It also reinforces the concept that there are many different kinds of maps and that each type supports a different purpose or need.
It should also be noted that this lesson was implemented in the context of a school that suffers from the limitations of being temporarily housed within an overcrowded host school. As such, we are not always able to provide dance classes in the gym, auditorium, or cafeteria. This lesson can be, and has been, implemented in a small classroom without compromising the material too badly. Of course it would be more pleasant for the children to perform bigger movement, but by the same token, this is one dance lesson that teachers should not shy away from delivering for lack of space. However, if the lesson is taught in a small space, special attention should be given to streamlining the map and the number of children dancing at one time in order to avoid collisions.
Finally, it should also be noted that this lesson, as is the case with all of my most successful dance lessons, was created in collaboration with a classroom teacher (in this instance, Amy Cohen, the third grade classroom teacher at the time). In order for an out-of-classroom teacher to work effectively in second-language instruction, collaboration with classroom teachers is essential. Because she spent all day with the children, and understood intimately their cognitive, emotional, and linguistic development, Amy was able to help me reshape my original lesson plan to better support the students with the least fluency in Spanish. She was the one who developed the idea of superimposing the dance map onto the rug with chalk and also supported me throughout the year to keep explicitly linking oral language production (as opposed to only receptive language) to dance activities.
These efforts paid off. By the end of the year, Amy credited my dance class with her second language learners’ success in learning action words and adverbs that describe movement. We also recognized that, with its emphasis on TPR, the dance class was a space in which students had opportunities to practice hearing and using concrete language, which is especially important for students who still have difficulties in Spanish in third grade, when academic language generally becomes more abstract. Connections between the tangible and the abstract were also made possible as students talked about the emotions being conveyed through movement.